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NPB introduced a new baseball two years ago and immediately created a dead ball era. Nakajima's 833 OPS was second in the Pacific League, his rough OPS+ (no park adjustment) was a little over 150.

Of course, it seems evident that there are humongous error bars on NPB translations, and different players react very differently to the league switch. And now the Japanese dead ball era adds further complications. But Nakajima is an elite hitter in NPB to a degree that is not obvious from his raw stats.

The sample of NPB->MLB movement is still small, and there's huge variance in MLB performance among former NPB players. The fact that Nishioka failed is no more determinative than the fact that Iguchi succeeded.

It comes down more to the evaluation of the individual rather than of the population. I'd start with the overall translations (which are quite good for Nakajima), but those are only a very broad, initial indicator.

For a white guy maybe. How can an Asian have the necessary fire and gumption to play Gibson-ball?

In fairness, I was kinda whining. They probably scouted him and determined that his defense wasn't good enough for MLB Shortstop. Then again they also scouted Gregorious and KT came away comparing him to Jeter. So Who TF knows.

Nakajima is no sure thing, but he has a better offensive track record than Nishioka. Nishioka's batting title was pretty flukish while Nakajima has solid secondary skills. We'll see. I think Sogard isn't a bad fallback option if he flops, actually. I know my fellow A's fans don't rate him, but I think that's because he looks like the graduate assistant to a classics professor in a small New England liberal arts college.

I agree that Nakajima has a better offensive profile than slap-hitter Nishioka but supposedly Nishioka had a great glove and he was one of the worst infielders I've seen play for the Twins. You'd think defense would translate to the US but there are some distinct differences in infield play that make things more difficult. Nishioka was taught to never backhand a ball. He was also not used to takeout slides on the double play which led to his leg injury. The Japanese ballparks are artificial turf and playing on grass is different.

I agree that Nakajima has a better offensive profile than slap-hitter Nishioka but supposedly Nishioka had a great glove and he was one of the worst infielders I've seen play for the Twins. You'd think defense would translate to the US but there are some distinct differences in infield play that make things more difficult. Nishioka was taught to never backhand a ball. He was also not used to takeout slides on the double play which led to his leg injury. The Japanese ballparks are artificial turf and playing on grass is different.

Nishioka was terrible, I'm not disagreeing with that, but he's also not the only Japanese infielder to come to MLB. Nakajima may prove to be as terrible as Nishioka but I'll judge that when I see him play. Worse case scenario is the A's flush 6 million of the Yankees' money down the toilet. That's ashtray money for an MLB team, even for the A's.

One last thing and then I'll shut up...my scouring of the internet makes me wonder if the A's don't see Nakajima as more of a utility player and that they may still go after Aledmyz Diaz when he's eligible to sign. That would be an interesting and bold plan of action.

There are scouts that doubt Nakajima can play SS in the majors. After suffering through Nishioka defensively that's a giant red flag for me.

There are hundreds of professional Japanese ballplayers, and Nishioka and Nakajima are nothing alike either physically or statistically. Using Nishioka to project Nakajima would be like using Jamey Carroll to project Trevor Plouffe.

Nakajima could bust, and the error bars on NPB translations are well known. That doesn't mean that Nishioka is a particularly useful data point.

Outfielders
Matsui - very good
Ichiro! - very good
Aoki - seems good so far
So Taguchi - good, especially considering how old he was
Fukudome - good but not worth the money
Shinjo! - bad

Outfielders seem like a better bet, but I would really not consider pitchers a better bet, considering the flop of Kei Igawa, the flameout of Hideki Irabu, the overpaying of Kenshin Kawakami and Hisashi Iwakuma, the incredible overpaying of Matsuzaka, the unimpressive performances of Ryota Igarashi, Masao Kida, Satoru Komiyama, Tateyama, Yabuta, Keiichi Yabu, etc.

It may help that Iguchi was always a second baseman. It also helps that he was in the prime of his career when he came over. Kaz Matsui was supposed to be a great fielder but was moved to 2B. Iwamura played 2B and 3B. We have yet to see a Japanese infielder stick at SS.

Japanese pitchers seem to be nearly as good a bet as other free agent pitchers. I can name just as many flameouts from MLB free agents. They do seem more overpaid but all pitching seems overpaid.

That seems like an awfully high-level worst case, unless you specifically mean the Brandon Inge of 2012.

He doesn't really seem like a Brandon Inge kind of player to me. Inge is a great fielder with HR power who cannot get on base. Nakajima seems like he may struggle with the glove but could be ok, too, won't have much pop, but has good on base skills. I'll be happy with the Japanese Marco Scutaro.